Search educator salary database

The Mercury in Pottstown, sister paper of the Daily Local News, has constructed a searchable data base, available to the public on its website’s Data Center, that includes information on every current school employee in the state’s Public School Employee Retirement System, the larger of the state’s two retirement systems.

The information here is current as of January 2014 and is the most recent data set collected by the PSERS system. A new data set will be issued in July.

As public employees funded with taxpayer dollars, the information contained is public information and available to anyone who asks.

We just made it a little easier to get your questions answered.

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What The Mercury found with just a quick look is that in the Pottstown area the Spring-Ford and Phoenixville school districts have the highest number of highly paid employees, and the highest percentage of highly paid employees, respectively.

Not too surprising when you consider Spring-Ford has the most employees of all the Pottstown area school districts.

At a little more than half the number of employees, the reason for Phoenixville’s high percentage of highly paid employees is not as evident.

Here are some of the specifics.

• Which school district in the Pottstown area has the most employees in the PSERS system? — Spring-Ford School District, which has 1,089 employees who will collect pensions. (Boyertown Area School District came in a close second, with only five fewer employees than Spring-Ford.)

• Which school district has the most employees earning $50,000 or more? — Spring-Ford, with 574.

• Which school district has the highest percentage of employees earning $50,000 or more ? — Phoenixville at 55.13 percent.

(A bill proposed by state Rep. Mike Tobash, R-125th of Schuylkill County, would keep the first $50,000 earned in the PSERS system as dedicated to a defined benefit pension account, similar to what exists now. The bill would direct pension contributions on all salary earned over $50,000 into a 401-K style retirement account.)

• Which school district has the most employees earning $100,000 or more? — Spring-Ford with 50.

• Which school district has the highest percentage of employees earning $100,000 or more? — Phoenixville at 6.96 percent.

• Which school district has the highest paid employee? — Phoenixville, where Superintendent Alan Fegley has an annual salary of $214,327.

Feel free to visit the data page and see what you find.

The searchable database allows visitors to search by employee name, by school district, by salary amount or years of service, or any combination of those factors.

So, for example, you can look up something as simple as a specific person’s salary, or something more complicated — like all the people with more than 20 years of service making more than $65,000 in the Pottsgrove School District. (Hint, it’s 72.)

Share your findings and your thoughts on our Facebook page or on Twitter using the #mercpension hashtag.